RAMHM Chapter 56

That Desperate Expression

Adrienne offered a guest room to the exhausted-looking Rhodness. After squabbling about who should sleep first, Rhodness finally lost to Adrienne and said he'd just take a bath before heading to the bathroom.

The servants' gazes remained subtly uncomfortable. The Grand Duke's visit and the Second Prince's visit had followed one after another as if they'd been waiting, and when she even offered a guest room, eyes that had initially shaken with shock gradually shifted toward resignation.

"Madam, Steward Jimskehr from the Grand Ducal Estate is here requesting an audience. What should we do?"

Yona, who'd been pacing the front garden on Adrienne's orders, reported immediately. Adrienne rose from her seat as if she'd been waiting, adjusting her black dress and hat.

"How is His Highness doing?"

"The old butler just went upstairs to help him dress."

At Marge's answer, Adrienne moved briskly toward the entrance. The timing was good.

"Shall I see Steward Jimskehr first?"

Marge felt with her skin that the mistress's state had changed somewhat from last night when she'd dismissed all the servants and remained alone. She'd been keeping a close eye anyway since the comings and goings, but the household had been growing peaceful and the Count's reputation had seemed to be rising, so she'd left it alone.

But the mistress's eyes now had a faintly maddening gleam. And people with such eyes always caused major incidents. The estate entrance opened, and Jimskehr entered with a rigid expression, dressed in formal black uniform. Adrienne smiled as if welcoming him.

"Steward Jimskehr."

When she calmly extended the back of her hand and permitted a kiss, Jimskehr was the one who grew flustered and fumbled before kissing her hand out of courtesy.

"Madam, I've come by the Grand Duke's orders to guard you."

"Me? Why?"

Since Jimskehr himself didn't understand why he should be guarding the Countess Acacia, his answer took quite a while. In that gap, Adrienne opened her mouth with a bright smile.

"I appreciate such thoughtful consideration, but I already have someone guarding me."

"Pardon? Who—"

"Me."

Rhodness's voice, having finished changing, spread thickly from the second-floor landing down to the first-floor lobby. The servants around Adrienne's vicinity gaped. Jimskehr's gaze scattered across Rhodness's wet golden hair fresh from washing, his face still glistening with moisture, his shirt with less than half the buttons fastened.

"This body isn't here for you to ogle."

"Pfft."

Neil, who'd followed Jimskehr in, barely suppressed his laughter at that very familiar line before his eyes met Rhodness's and he stiffened his expression, lowering his gaze.

"Jimskehr Raelon. You serve royalty yet your manners toward royalty are a disaster. Did Count Raelon teach you that way?"

"The Star of the Empire, His Highness the Second Prince—"

"Enough. It's tedious."

What kind of bastard is this, the gazes seemed to say, but Rhodness ignored them lightly. His leisurely stride—as if he owned the place despite entering this estate for the first time—and his even slower motion of fastening his buttons had something suffocating about it.

Was it because of his reputation as a battlefield demon? Or because of his title as a troublemaker beautiful enough to be bewitching? Jimskehr's time, which had been flowing like an eternity, began to move at its proper speed again when that beautiful troublemaker wrapped his long arm around the widow's shoulders in one motion.

"What kind of lord sends his right-hand man to a widow's home the moment her husband dies."

Rhodness's straight forehead, sweeping back his wet hair, glistened with moisture. Jimskehr, who'd been standing transfixed watching the motion, immediately stiffened at the Prince's next words.

"Tell him not to mess around with my woman, and to finish guarding the funeral properly."

Jimskehr, who'd returned to the Grand Ducal Estate, poured out everything he'd seen and heard in Novian's office. Novian's face, which had briefly thought Jimskehr might have come with Bliea given his early return, hardened like stone. Novian reacted immediately to a single phrase from Jimskehr's mouth.

"My woman?"

Jimskehr witnessed the document Novian had been reading get ruthlessly crumpled in his outstretched hand.

"My woman?"

"Yes. He clearly said that and threw me out."

Jimskehr answered what seemed like a request for confirmation. He kept firmly hidden the addition that if he didn't leave immediately to deliver the message, he'd be crushed so badly he couldn't even walk. To face the faintly deranged Second Prince, Jimskehr was no match.

"And the Countess?"

"The two of them seemed to be in a very... close relationship."

Another document crumpled. Jimskehr stood frozen for a long moment at Novian's unprecedented agitation before cautiously leaving the office, sensing it was a silent dismissal.

The immaculate office without a speck of dust. Novian's pale face, untouched by a single ray of sunlight, darkened as if heavy shadows had fallen across it.

"What on earth..."

What on earth went wrong? Left alone, Novian analyzed the cause of the problem one by one, as he always did. He'd been confident that this time, Bliea Acacia would kneel before him of her own accord.

Count Acacia was the only one among Novian's many vassals who'd helped launder Bliea Acacia's identity. However humble, he'd still been a noble living in the capital. For Bliea, who'd lived clinging to the pillar called Count Acacia under Novian's shadow, the Count's death wasn't simply death. It meant her only foundation collapsing.

He'd clearly seen her face stained with shock, her eyes shaking. No matter how much of a Bliea Acacia she was, she couldn't help but feel regret or guilt or some such emotion in this situation. Since she was an emotional woman, he'd thought she might feel even some cheap pity, if only briefly.

And if she had any sense, she would've understood it was a warning directed at her, that it was his will to no longer show mercy...

"Rhodness."

Novian turned over that name in his mouth ceaselessly like grating grains of sand. He couldn't shake the feeling he'd fallen into a trap of his own making. As he tried to steal away Adrienne's substitute, the man who'd loved Adrienne was trying to take her—a hollow laugh escaped him unbidden.

His long-stretched fingers scraped hard against the armrest. His gaze, dropped to his pale hand with veins standing out, was sharp as a blade. The thought of defying him or trying to escape—that absolutely couldn't have come from Bliea's tiny little head.

As long as he was the one who'd laundered Bliea's identity, that woman had no choice. Novian thought this even as he spent the entire morning contemplating how to punish Bliea, who was trying to ruin things with futile delusions, and how to shake her once firmly in his grasp.

Until he saw the meal and gossip magazine the butler Gaspar had brought, claiming to be concerned for his master.

【 The Beautiful Widow Who Captured Ronteaux's Prodigal Son—Who is Countess Bliea Acacia? 】

This wasn't the cute level of article he'd overlooked until now.

【 From Ronteaux's Greatest Scoundrel to Greatest Romantic: What Are Second Prince Rhodness's Intentions in Not Denying His Scandal with a Commoner-Born Widow?! 】

The gossip magazine cover, printed poster-sized, struck his eyes mercilessly.

"Gaspar!!"

"Yes, Your Grace."

"I need to go to the palace."

At Novian's momentum as he ground his teeth speaking, Gaspar hesitated before pulling out an invitation he'd brought in his pocket.

"As it happens, the palace contacted us."

"What is it?"

Those intensely sensitive blue eyes flashed.

"It's an invitation to participate in the delegation's farewell ceremony."

The palace's grand audience hall where the delegation's farewell ceremony was being held. Novian had accepted the invitation not for the ceremony he had no interest in, but to visit Rhodness's office afterward or to suggest to the Emperor that the Second Prince should be sent to another battlefield.

His head was pounding and nausea rose with indescribable emotion, but it was somewhat bearable.

"I greet my lord, His Grace the Grand Duke."

Until Bliea appeared at this delegation's farewell ceremony, brazenly receiving Rhodness's escort. Color came to the faces of the habitually taciturn Ellaconian delegation, and an atmosphere formed where anyone could see they were welcoming Bliea.

Seeing Bliea standing beside Rhodness in bright light, receiving attention, violent emotion whirled in his chest. It had been truly a long time since he'd felt such fierce emotion.

'An?'

'The name An... was Novian's "An," wasn't it.'

'It's so amazing that you're always exactly like the An I dreamed of and imagined.'

The emotion he'd felt the moment he first encountered Adrienne. And that emotion rose to a dangerously high level when he saw Bliea give him a perfunctory greeting, then receive direct recognition of her achievements from the Emperor. Achievements that would've been buried without Doris's intervention.

A very intense sense of crisis dominated his entire body.

"Should we make up for a bit?"

The words came from Doris's mouth as they watched Bliea receive successive greetings from the delegation and pay respects directly to the Emperor. It was an intimate voice that seemed to gnaw at his ear.

"I don't know who you'll put in the Grand Duchess's seat, but if you don't forget we're in the same boat, we won't bother trying to push Prince Ephero in either."

"What do you mean?"

He couldn't take his eyes from that unfamiliar sight of Bliea receiving the Emperor's praise beside Rhodness and the Crown Prince.

"I've taken a liking to that lady, and my father hates seeing the Second Prince's power grow... Putting one pitiful widow by the Second Prince's side instead of a powerful family's daughter isn't a difficult task at all."

"With all due respect, please don't interfere."

At the cold voice, Doris smiled instead, even adding an eye-smile.

"Conversely, pushing that one pitiful widow to the side of a widower who lost his wife isn't a difficult task either."

"...Do you find the Grand Duchess position laughable?"

"The Grand Duke didn't act that way all this time because my father, called the King of the West, is laughable, did you?"

Doris responded coldly to the low anger of Novian.

"Decide whether you'll pretend to lose and accept it, or watch it get stolen with your eyes wide open."

"I have no idea what you mean."

"Please, stop pretending to be proper."

From the mouth of Doris, who'd told the Emperor herself that the greatest credit went to Countess Acacia, that intimate voice kept crawling out. From behind her ceaselessly fluttering fan, Doris showed him a twisted smile.

"Say such things after hiding that desperate expression, Grand Duke. It makes you look ridiculous."

Desperate expression. Those words alone shattered Novian Trovika's pride into pieces.